Persephone at Mid-Life: Revisiting Feminist Archetypal Theory in a Personal Journey Through Menopause

Pickard, Susan ORCID: 0000-0003-3429-8880 (2024) Persephone at Mid-Life: Revisiting Feminist Archetypal Theory in a Personal Journey Through Menopause. Feminist Theology, 32 (2). pp. 132-146.

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Abstract

<jats:p> This article suggests that feminist archetypal theory provides a helpful and empowering framework through which to understand embodied change as experienced in contemporary times. A mainstream approach associated with second-wave feminism, it has fallen victim to poststructuralist critiques and is rarely used, despite a renewed popularity of goddess archetypes in broader lay culture. I argue that this framework deserves revisiting as, in generating positive images and plots, it can serve as a source of empowerment and strength for women and especially so where hegemonic contemporary discourses are overwhelmingly negative and medicalised, as in the case of menopause. Using auto-ethnographic methods, I illustrate this with reference to my own lived experience of menopausal transition. Finally, and just as importantly, I show how this approach configures a different and more holistic kind of knowledge that recognises connection, relationality and communion of self, others and world, rather than separation and domination. </jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Aging
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Law and Social Justice
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	02 Oct 2023 08:19
Last Modified:	15 Mar 2024 08:56
DOI:	10.1177/09667350231208137
Open Access URL:	https://doi.org/10.1177/09667350231208137
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3173223